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Successful Women in Politics Who've Had Their Fair Share of Adversity

For these pioneering women, making political history means picking up a few hecklers along the way.

Moisturize away, ladies. But if you want to go into politics, you better have some thick skin.

Hillary Clinton has suffered epic indignities in her career—Hillary nutcrackers are still in stock at stupid.com ($33.99)—but her road to power was paved by many feminists before her, and boy, they knew from humiliation.

Consider Victoria Claflin Wood, who declared herself the first female presidential candidate in 1872. They called her “impudent witch” and “Mrs. Satan” and didn’t bother to count her votes. Susan B. Anthony demanded the women’s vote. She was eventually rewarded… with a commemorative coin. It was just confused a lot with the quarter and discontinued.

In 1922, when a Georgia senator died, they humored 87-year-old suffragette Rebecca Felton and appointed her the first woman in the US Senate. She served 24 whole hours before another guy took over. Other 20th-century ladies fared better—Eleanor Roosevelt, Madeleine Albright, Geraldine Ferraro—inspiring little girls and calling them to public service. (Like Sarah Palin, who nearly leap-frogged Hillary to the White House as Vice President.) The press, though, focused on those red Naughty Monkey pumps.

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